Three of the industries that are most in need of wide area coverage are public transport road haulage and parcel delivery. Kaveh Hosseinzadeh, TASSTA’s managing director says that TASSTA’s solutions provide companies operating in these sectors with full flexibility through allowing them to use any type of radio hardware in combination and its systems help improve the efficiency of their operations, through enabling faster and more flexible communications. Driver safety is also enhanced through TASSTA’s lone worker protection feature coupled with the ability to use voice and broadband data to improve situational awareness and allow employees to easily share information during an incident.
Transport and logistics companies working with TASSTA also benefit from its full GPS tracking, geofencing and GPS history capabilities; the latter aids in allowing operators and managers to “look back and see what really happened” by retracing a vehicle’s route prior to an incident. Hosseinzadeh says that TASSTA’s GPS tracking and geofencing capabilities are being used by ports to create a zone that extends beyond their location, so that when a truck enters it, “they get a notification and they can immediately prepare for whatever needs to be done – they’re not surprised when it turns up and they can better optimise their time management.”
Naturally, driver privacy has been considered; TASSTA’s system can be set up to allow GPS information to be only available to the operator/employer during certain hours or in certain areas, “so that the operator or the employer can’t track the driver 24/7 – only in those cases which are agreed with the driver.”
A German courier service is currently using TASSTA’s T.Flex PTT solution, combined with GPS tracking and T.Recorder’s ability to record GPS data, to allow almost all of its 1,400 employees and 3,000 couriers to coordinate their activities and fulfil their customers’ orders as quickly as possible.
Similarly, one of the largest road haulage companies operating in Europe and the Middle East is using TASSTA’s T.Rodon – a professional, desktop-based dispatch solution – to help it plan its routes. T.Rodon’s guard tour feature allows the user to track a driver over GPS data.
Finally, in Hanover, Germany, TASSTA is involved in the development of a communications system for a public transport company that operates a fleet of 750 buses, trams and subways, which will provide push-to-talk voice communications over analogue, DMR (in the core geographical area in which the company operates) and a public mobile network. The system will make it easy to bring subcontractors onto the network and allows its operators to move users from network to network to ensure that they always have the best possible connection.
Protecting the next generation
“In most situations the emphasis is on our PTT functionality, but with our solutions for schools, the most important feature we offer is our lone worker protection – the voice communication we offer is a secondary consideration,” Hosseinzadeh says.
He adds that one advantage TASSTA’s system has over conventional desk-mounted alarm buttons is its lower cost, given that its wireless nature eliminates the need for cabling and installation – “installing alarm buttons in every classroom requires a huge investment”. Its second major advantage is its greater flexibility – as a smartphone-based app it is always with them – and it also provides man-down functionality, triggering an alarm if the person carrying the device falls to the ground and stops moving.
“This is complemented by our indoor location services, lone workers are not always outside where there’s GPS coverage so we’ve created our indoor location service, which can determine a user’s location to an accuracy of five metres, using either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth beacons, which can make all the difference during an emergency.”
Through boosting response times, TASSTA’s systems can help improve staff and pupil safety during emergencies
Hosseinzadeh adds that the system is already installed in a school in Germany and one of the main advantages TASSTA’s lone worker protection system has over less feature-rich systems is that its PTT functionality allows the users to talk and message each other, “allowing them to share information during an incident, such as how many people are involved, which doors are blocked or shouldn’t be used – simple things that could save people’s lives. It can also be used to tell security guards or the police exactly what’s going on – with our radio gateway, it’s even possible to directly communicate with the police, if the local police station and the school have set up this capability beforehand.”
He adds that one factor that increases the need for teachers to be able to communicate with each other effectively during incidents, is the short duration of many incidents coupled with the time it can take for the police arrive at the scene.
“With a few thousand Euros we can drastically optimise a school’s communications, allowing them to respond to incidents faster. It also allows staff to better support the efforts of the emergency services, while making it easier for them to resolve an emergency before it could result in serious injuries to the pupils or students in their care.”
Free PTT over Wi-Fi – an alternative to PMR446
One feature that TASSTA has recently added to T.Flex (its free to download PTT app) is its ability to work over a closed Wi-Fi network without the need for internet access or a server. All users have to do is ensure that they are using the same Wi-Fi network and the same group name. “Right now, it’s available for Android and we’re planning to also have it for iPhone,” Hosseinzadeh adds. He explains that some of the use cases for this feature include using it as an alternative to low-powered licence-exempt PMR446 radios. It can also be used to give employees PTT/workgroup communications functionality in a bring your own device (BYOD) environment, in which case there’s no need for the business (be it a restaurant, small events company or even an airport) to buy their own handsets.
Hosseinzadeh says that the reason why TASSTA offers this service for free is that doing so will help it to provide the “best possible application and support for PTT users. Also, if people are using our application and benefiting from the group communications it provides, they might consider some of the other features we offer, such as indoor location tracking, emergency calls and broadcast calls and priority calls and so on. They might say ‘it’s a good thing that you’re doing, but we need more functionality to optimise our environment – what can you offer us?’”
He adds that TASSTA has a similar philosophy when it comes to its TR.Pro radio dispatcher. “Radio dispatchers are too expensive and it doesn’t have to be that way. We want to sell the first radio dispatcher that every user can afford and use immediately, regardless of whether they’re using MOTOTRBO, DAMM, Sepura, or any other radio manufacturer’s infrastructure and we’ve reduced TR.Pro’s price for a limited period to €480, plus a €30 per month per operator subscription fee, with no additional costs no matter how many radios the operator has on their system. I want TR.Pro to be the radio dispatcher for everybody and for us to help the industry move away from a situation where users are unable to unlock the full operational benefits of their two-way radio network because they can’t afford more than two dispatchers. When the number of radio dispatchers is restricted, you end up with some operators that can’t see all their users on a map, multiple users interfaces instead of one and it’s harder for them to type messages on a handset than a keyboard.”
Coming soon to a well-known distributor near you…
If you’re in the UK and the above has sparked your interest in TASSTA’s solutions, either as an end-user or reseller, we’ve saved the best news till last: TASSTA and Airsys have formed a partnership, which means that the distributor’s channel partners will be able to buy and resell TASSTA’s suite of products and services from Airsys at the end of quarter two 2018.
“Airsys is the largest radio distributor in UK and we are very proud that we could win them as our partner,” says TASSTA’s Hosseinzadeh. “Airsys spent a long period comparing all the different PTT providers and chose TASSTA’s solution so it and its resellers can support the requirements of many different industries and public sector organisations.”
“The way that we communicate continues to evolve and the two-way radio industry is not immune to this progress, says Leigh Hope, Airsys’s chief operating officer. “While we see a long term future for radio, we also believe that the potential to augment and enhance this existing technology with new mobile broadband capabilities is significant. We felt that TASSTA with its wide ranging features and interoperability was an ideal addition to the Airsys product portfolio.”
FirstNet app certification; MCPTT Plugtests
Over in the US, FirstNet, a government-backed project to provide all US first-responders with access to interoperable and mission-critical broadband data, has launched an app store specifically for first responders and the project is currently testing the security of TASSTA’s T-Link application. Hosseinzadeh expects “that these will complete by the end of May, at which point it will be available to first responders in the US”.
He says that “TASSTA is participating in the ETSI MCPTT Plugtests in Texas, as it did last year in France, as part of its ambition to be the most innovative solution for the critical communication market.” Preparing for this is the company’s current focus and that Hosseinzadeh expects to be able to deliver MCPTT-compliant products in 4Q18, once the finetuning that will take place after the plugtests is complete.
Kaveh Hosseinzadeh, TASSTA’s managing director
Contact Information:
For more information, please email TASSTA at kh@TASSTA.com
